Feeling Useful

I was just at Winco getting groceries. I didn't fight for the shorter line, instead patiently waited in the long one. I was finally buying the beer I'd been craving all week, but I forgot that I have not received my replacement driver's license yet.

Well, now as I look I realize I haven't actually told you what happened yet. Just before my trip to Phoenix for Thanksgiving, my wallet was stolen. I'll finish that post next.

So I'm standing there wondering if I'm going to get carded, because I always get carded at Winco. Sure enough, she asks, and I produce the temporary paper drivers license I printed out from the DMV website. I explain that my wallet was stolen, and she asks me from where.

I tell her work: the VA, and she says she'll have to warn her father, who is a new patient there. She tells me he just moved here and has to take the bus in from Carson City. I tell her that there are volunteers who drive people in from outlying areas. She was trying to tell me more about her dad's situation in between questions from her next customer, so I gave her my work number. I have really got to start carrying my business card.

I drive home from Winco, and before I even take the groceries in, I check the mail, and there is my driver's license. I meant to check the mail earlier today. If I had, I would have had my ID and there would have been no reason to talk about the VA.

Maybe it is not so cut and dried as "everything happens for an reason." Or maybe we just don't often see it. It's a pretty crazy tie to get to this, but it sounds like her dad needs help, she needs information, and I can be the link they need.

It's not that the information isn't available or that the government wants to restrict it or that the VA doesn't care about veterans, as my conspiracy theorists like to tell me. It's that there is too MUCH information available- it's overwhelming. I bet he's already got the book and the transportation info. All they need is 15 minutes on the phone with someone who can stop and listen, who knows what questions to ask, and who can give them a roadmap for the most pressing needs. It doesn't sound like much, but I have received so much gratitude from so many vets and their families for this that I know how valuable it is. In two and a half years at the VA, I have learned- not all, but a lot- just by trying to answer these questions for people and I suddenly see what my coworkers keep telling me:

Grand plan or not, I am in the right place.